County To Seek Minority Bidders

October 4, 1985|By Fred Lowery, Staff Writer

For the first time, Palm Beach County will attempt to recruit businesses owned and operated by minorities and women as bidders on county contracts.

But it won`t be a free ride for those businesses, county commissioners said as they unanimously gave informal approval to the program Thursday. To get contracts, minority businesses still will have to submit the lowest bids.

``The businesses, particularly minorities, have always been there,`` Purchasing Director Warren Geltsch said during the commission`s discussion meeting in West Palm Beach, ``but they have never bid because they didn`t think we were interested in giving them the work.``

Geltsch estimated that minorities own less than 2 percent of firms that are qualified bidders. Adding businesses owned by women increases the figure to 7 percent.

The county puts about $30 million worth of business out for bids in a given year, Geltsch said. Discounting areas where there are no known businesses owned by women or minorities, such as traffic signals, road striping and heavy equipment, they will be competing for $15 million to $17 million.

Geltsch said a task force of county, minority and industry representatives who developed the program decided that active solicitation and some changes in existing county policy would be more fair to both the businesses and the county than a minority set-aside program.

Under a set-aside program a percentage of business is set aside for minority contractors, regardless of whether they are the low bidder.

The county`s program will enable a number of businesses that previously had been shut out by seemingly innocent bid requirements to now seek county contracts on everything from office and janitorial supplies to construction projects, Commissioner Ken Spillias said.

``There have been a lot of requirements, which, on their face, treated everybody equally, but eliminated companies without a large cash flow,`` he said.

For example, he cited a requirement that companies seeking construction contracts must post performance bonds in advance. Also, minority taxi companies seeking to work at Palm Beach International Airport last year had to provide $1 million in insurance for each taxi.

Such requirements will be eliminated in favor of more reasonable requirements, which could be met by many companies, regardless of their size, Spillias said.

Eventually, he predicted, ``the businesses in themselves will be successful enough where these things won`t even matter.``

The new emphasis is working already, Assistant County Administrator Vince Bonvento said.

``Just education and promotion of awareness resulted in a gas supplier, a minority business, in the Glades to submit a bid,`` he said. ``It was the low bid, and he was awarded the contract and is supplying gas to the county for the Glades.``

Commissioner Jerry Owens questioned safeguards against firms attempting to qualify for preferred treatment by white male proprietors turning over ownership to their wives.

``That will have to be a judgment call,`` Bonvento replied. ``If the wife is actively involved in the operation of the business, it may qualify. But if she stays at home, or otherwise is not involved in the company, it would not.``

Geltsch said cases where a question was raised would have to be investigated individually.

Commission Chairman Ken Adams told Geltsch to emphasize that the new policy should apply to small contracts as well as large ones.

``It is important that we rotate the business,`` he said. ``A $3,000 contract might not sound like much to some, but it could be important to a man and wife operating their own shop. The records show (rotating) is not being done now.``

Geltsch said the program was aimed primarily at attracting local businesses, but in some areas it could mean attempting to solicit minority bids statewide or regionally.

``We`re not going to Washington state just to meet a goal,`` he said. ``We want to emphasize working with local businesses.``